Paper Title
Effect of Copper Oxide (CuO) Nanoparticles on Structural and Conductivity of CuO-Polymer Composite Gel Electrolyte for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract
Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) hasreceived widespread attention for its low-cost, environmental benignity and potential high conversion efficiency as compared to conventional silicon solar cells. The utilization of liquid electrolyte in DSSCs is often associated with several practical issues such as electrolyte leakage and evaporation, and precipitation of salts in polymer at low temperature which make gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) is more preferable. Host polymer-salt complex suffers from low ionic conductivity and poor mechanical strength due to slow ion mobility within the polymer system. Incorporating metal oxidenanofiller into GPE is one of the approaches that can be used to obtain improvement in ionic conductivity and efficiency due to their large surface area which provide cross linking centers for the polymer segment.In this research,gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) employingpoly (vinyl butyral-co-vinyl alcohol-co-vinyl acetate) (P(VB-co-VA-co-VAc))terpolymer as host polymer and copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles as nanofiller was produced. CuO nanoparticles were synthesized through hydrothermal method and incorporated into the GPE to form polymer composite gel electrolyte (PCGE). Effect of different amounts ofCuO nanoparticles on the structure and ionic conductivity of the GPE was observed through X-ray diffraction (XRD) and electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analyses. DSSC was assembled and its performance was evaluated in terms of their open-circuit voltages, close-circuit current densities, fill factor and efficiencies. The highest photovoltaic conversion efficiency that was achieved with incorporating CuO nanoparticle is 4.01% with Jsc of 12.52 mA cm-2, Voc of 0.61 V and fill factor of 52%.